Father and Son Read Online Free PDF

up. Sort of, I dunno, she’s…”
    “You don’t have to explain.”
    “Good, good,” he says, hardly listening, his driving getting worse.
    “Not given up the cigs, then?” she says as they take what seems to
be a random series of roads, heading vaguely out of town.
    “I thought I had. I thought lots of things.” He drums his fingers on
the wheel, looking left and right. “You fancy a coffee?”
    “What’s all this about, John?”
    “It’s got to be between us. Is that okay?” he says, narrowly missing
a parked car then braking hard, both of them thrown forwards in their seats.
    He thought he was over the worst of it. But now, back out on the
streets, it’s hit him again. His hands are beginning to shake.
    “I think you’d better pull over,” she says. “I’ve got something I
need to tell you as well.”
     
    A couple of minutes later Den’s also smoking. They’re on a
tree-lined road, neat semis on both sides. There’s no one about, but she keeps
her voice down.
    “So Lanny Bride asked you?”
    He nods. They both know why.
    “Roberto?” she says. “How old?”
    “About sixty. He ran the bar for Lanny.”
    “Not active, then?”
    “I’d say not.” He stops, shakes his head. “Lovely man. I mean,
obviously to you it’s… it’s…”
    He feels her hand on his. When he looks up, he realises there are
tears in his eyes again.
    “It’s OK,” she says. “I know who he was. You’ve talked about him
before. I know.”
    “Funny, isn’t it? Good and bad? Not that easy to tell apart when it’s
someone close, someone who you know was good. What do they say in London?
Diamond geezer. He had no kids, no family. That’s all that’s left of him, a
cliché and a pool of blood.”
    She takes a drag, shudders as the smoke hits the back of her throat,
then flicks the cigarette out of the window.
    “My advice,” she says, “forget about good and bad. Look at the
facts. And,” she adds, looking out at the calm residential street, “we better
get moving. You all right to drive?”
    “I’m fine. Where to?”
    “To see your dad. Isn’t that what you said?”
    “Yes, but that was just to…”
    “Roberto use to work for Tony, right?”
    “Yeah, back when I was a kid.”
    “Come on then,” she says. “I haven’t seen him for a while.”
    He pauses, hands on the steering wheel.
    “What was it you wanted to tell me?”
    “Nothing. Let’s go.”
     
    Back when he was a kid? He was about nine when he started to see the
flashes of disdain in people’s faces. He knew it was something to do with his
dad. Yet at home Dad was just the bloke with the funny accent and the suits.
Always a nice tie, smart shoes. Good clothes, not natty. Tony Ray was no
spiv. He didn’t get involved with bringing up the kids much, but he was usually
at home in the evenings, never one for the high life.
    Every week there’d be something new to discover in their big old
terrace house in Armley. Crates full of cosmetics and perfume in the spare
room, boxes of transistor radios and cassette players piled up against the
walls. Now and then there’d be a rail of clothes in the front room, leather
jackets or women’s fur coats, covered in clear plastic so thin it made a
hissing sound when you ran your hand over it.
    Then there were the Saturday mornings down at the showroom with his
brother Joe, never a customer in sight, but always a handful of men hanging
around, playing cards and ruffling your hair too hard. His dad was a criminal? He
was an immigrant who’d made his own way. A Spanish rogue stepping out of the
Yorkshire fog in an overcoat, like a character from a grainy old British film. What
harm had he done, with that dark-eyed smile and the way he had of always
getting what he wanted? Tony Ray was just Dad.
    Then it all changed. His dad became famous.

Chapter Nine
    They pull up at
Oaklands Residential Home, about the most exclusive place in the area to spend
your golden years. There’s no good or bad here,